What Low Energy Nuclear Reactions (LENR) Are and Why They are not Widely Publicized

Dr. Scott R. Chubb
NRL (retired) and Infinite Energy Magazine, Burke, VA
EMAIL: chubbscott@mac.com

Twenty years ago, when Fleischmann and Pons claimed they had created room temperature, nuclear 
fusion, a firestorm of controversy erupted.  Many factors were responsible for this.  A key 
fact that we now know, however, is that Fleischmann and Pons did indeed find a form of fusion, 
but the associated reaction, which occurs rarely in conventional fusion (although it does 
occur), involves subtle electromagnetic effects that have not been widely appreciated by most 
nuclear physicists.  For this reason, the name, “Cold Fusion,” that was used at the time the 
controversy began, significantly misrepresented what had been discovered, and for this reason, 
alone, the name undermined the credibility of the field.  Despite this fact, research at a small 
number of laboratories continued.  And with time, this number has grown significantly.  Because 
the underlying idea that a nuclear reaction might take place using an ordinary chemical 
environment (without high energy particles) was so novel, a number of creative experiments were 
developed, involving potential, alternative forms of nuclear reaction that were created within a 
“low energy nuclear reaction.”  Within this context, evidence has been accumulating that in fact 
nuclear reactions can be triggered at very low levels (relative to the levels obtained by 
Fleischmann and Pons) without high energy particles.  As a consequence, procedures for 
initiating “Low Energy Nuclear Reactions” (LENR) are being developed.  Because of implicit 
problems involving possible forms of contamination, the associated procedures require careful, 
accurate measurements.  Y. Iwamura and his colleagues from Mitsubishi have performed the most 
compelling studies of these kinds of effects.  In particular, this group has performed a 
somewhat remarkable series of measurements, in which deuterium gas is loaded into a Cs or Sr 
film that has been deposited on Pd.  The measurements are remarkable because they indicate that 
a very small fraction (one part per billion) of the atoms from films of either  atom ( Cs or Sr) 
has a nucleus that appears to undergo a form of transmutation, in which 4 protons and 4 neutrons 
are added to it (in particular, they appear to have discovered the following reactions: 
133/55 Cs + 4d --> 141/59 Pr, 88/38 Sr + 4d --> 96/42 Mo, where d is a proton-neutron pair).  With 
time, the LENR field has been evolving into a new area of science, which is referred to as 
Condensed Matter Nuclear Science (CMNS), which has a remarkably rich, complicated structure.  
In the talk, I will give an overview of some of the history of the field and current areas of research.  
Since 1989, a second area of research has been evolving associated with questions related to the 
lack of information in the mainstream scientific literature about efforts to reproduce the work by 
Fleischmann and Pons.  In particular, at a relatively early stage in the evolution of work in this area, 
I was asked to serve as a guest editor of a special two issue edition of the Ethics in Science 
journal, Accountability in Research , dealing with questions related not to whether or not the initial 
“Cold Fusion” claims were correct but to more subtle questions involving the obvious breakdown 
in scientific discourse about the topic.  I will also discuss some of the findings of this study.

Bio:  https://ewh.ieee.org/r2/wash_nova/aess/bio_12-08-09.txt
Presentation:  https://ewh.ieee.org/r2/wash_nova/aess/Dec_8_2009.pdf